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Tennessee State Capitol

       Tennessee State Museum

       Appendix I: Chapters Organized Geographically

       Appendix II: Daytripping (or in this case, Nighttripping)

       Appendix III: Paranormal Investigation Groups

       Appendix IV: A Handful of Haunted Locations a Little More Than an Hour Away

       Appendix V: Location Checklist

       About the Authors

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      WE WOULD LIKE TO START BY THANKING all of those nameless people out there who made this book possible. During our countless hours of research into this vast array of haunted locations, we were helped by so many people who either wished to remain anonymous or whose name we never knew. It almost seems unfair that many of the people who helped us the most may not be individually named in this section. For this reason, we feel that these people should be mentioned first. You have our most sincere apology for not including your name, and you have our most sincere thank-you.

      Next, there are a handful of people who assisted with the daunting amount of research that was necessary for this book. Without these people, this book would not have been possible: Nicole Dunn, Chris Smith, Lawrence Michaels, Michele Carter, Johnny Cash, Jerry Zoeller, Matt Kroeger, Michael Lamping, Stephanie Ollech, James Nash, Alan Brown, Joanne Shelton, Richard Edgeworth, Dudley Pitts, Terry Mayo, and Brad Zeltmer.

      Many individual stories throughout this book can be credited to individuals who helped us obtain the stories and history of the locations. Joe Peters, owner of the Walking Horse Hotel, thank you for telling us stories and allowing us to investigate your amazing hotel. Adam Russell, thank you for helping us track down the ghostly happenings at Hume-Fogg High School. Yvonne Clark, thank you for both your encouragement and the amazing research that you did to help us along the way.

      Another person who made this book possible is Ryan Vehr. Ryan was indispensible during our many excursions into the city of Nashville. He helped to discover and photograph several of the locations that appear in the book. He did this selflessly, sacrificing his own time and money to help us. He deserves credit for some of the photographs in this book, and he deserves our gratitude for his contributions.

      Next, we would like to thank our friends at the American Paranormal Society: Monica Leister, Fran Staley, Tanya Green, Wayne and Judy Meeker, Carol Humphrey, Scott and Neth Williams, Nikki Nelson-Hicks, Melanie Nelson, David and Nicholle Rockwell, Heather Beckwith, and Ron and Chris Noel. These people all deserve a very special mention because they are responsible for many of the locations that are featured in this book. They are true paranormal explorers and researchers who helped us discover many of the haunted sites described in the following pages.

      Finally, we would all like to individually extend thanks to family and to people who have helped us along the way:

      DONNA: My sons, Jonathan Dyer and Jordan Marsh, deserve a tremendous thank-you for all of the hours they spent with me going through cemeteries, researching sites, and poring over evidence when I’m sure they would rather have been hanging out with their friends. And my parents, Randall and Shirley McCormick, have my gratitude for encouraging me to go for it.

      JEFF: My wife, Amy, my son, Koen, and my stepdaughter, Dakota, deserve my gratitude. Not only did they sacrifice their own time to pick up the slack at home while I worked on this book, but they also encouraged me and pushed me to be my best. My parents also deserve my thanks. Their encouragement helped to get me through all those long hours of writing and research. Finally, my brother, Mike, who helped me with the Cincinnati Haunted Handbook, deserves my thanks. He has been my partner throughout my career as a writer. Without him, I never would have made it to this point.

      GARETT: I’d like to thank my parents and God for making me; without such I couldn’t have helped write this book. I’d like to thank my family for being supportive; ghosts for existing (without them this book would make no sense); Garfield for being awesome; my truck for getting us to and from Nashville; the Nashville Predators fans for making one of our trips more interesting; and Elvis Presley, because without him I would not now have an awesome picture of me and a statue of him.

      FOREWORD

      WHEN I CAME UP WITH THE IDEA for the Haunted Handbook series, I started by looking toward many of the other ghost books that were already out there. I have always loved reading ghost stories, and these stories were always so much better when they were supposedly true. My favorite ghost books were the ones that had some sort of documented history behind the ghosts. I wanted to know why these ghosts were there, what happened on a certain road that gave rise to the ghosts that now reside there, or who was buried in a certain cemetery that caused it to be haunted. I also enjoyed knowing where the haunted locations were and how to get to them. As great as I thought these books were, I always had the belief that with enough research and hard work, I could make a better guide.

      The first thing I set out to improve was the fact that the other ghost books out there usually left me wanting more. My favorite ghost books told anywhere from 17 to 34 ghost stories apiece about as many haunted locations. While these stories were sometimes terrifying and always interesting, I was always left wondering why the books stopped at so few of them. It seemed that there were so many more stories out there, and I wanted to hear them all.

      When I set out to create the first Haunted Handbook, based in my hometown of Cincinnati, my goal was to include an unprecedented number of ghost stories in the book. It all started when I told my publisher that I was pretty sure I could get 50 haunted locations in a single book. Soon that changed to 75, and then to 90. Once I was confident that I could find ghost stories for 90 different haunted locations, I convinced myself that a hundred locations was possible. Instead of simply including a handful of haunted sites, we were ultimately able to include 100 places. In my opinion, the sheer number of locations is one of the most interesting facets of this series.

      The next thing that I felt needed to be addressed in the Haunted Handbook series is the geographical focus. Many of my favorite ghost books focused on too wide an area, some even including stories from all across the country. Others had stories from across an entire state. I would always find myself skimming through these books, looking for those locations that I was able to recognize or that were close enough to me that I could go visit an actual haunted location. Unfortunately, many times this meant that only two or three locations in each book would really pique my interest.

      The Haunted Handbook series addresses this issue by making sure that all 100 locations in the book are within an hour’s drive of the center of the city. This means that if you live in that city, whether you were aware that they were haunted or not, you are probably familiar with most of the locations. Tourists can visit any of the locations with the knowledge that they are never too far away from their hotel. Instead of having to flip through the book looking for those sites that are close, readers can now read through each chapter, knowing that each location is nearby.

      The final thing that I wished my favorite ghost books would talk about is how to go looking for these ghosts. I have always liked to pretend that I was an explorer. I would rather learn about some haunted location and then go out and visit the place. The books that inspired me to start writing my own ghost books would capture my interest about a certain cemetery or haunted road, but I would have no idea how to get to the location or when the place closed. I would often wonder if it was okay to go there at night or if a certain place was safe to visit alone.

      I decided to add sections that I hoped would answer these questions for the

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